MY DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--At the desire of a large number of Radical Members of Parliament, I write to make an appeal to you with regard to your attitude upon the Government for Ireland Bill. They are all of them amongst your warmest admirers, and they have always looked to you as the leader of their phase of political thought. They advocated your "unauthorised programme" at the last General Election, and they have persistently defended you against the attacks and aspersions of all who have denounced you and your views upon political or social issues. With much that you have said upon the Irish Bill they agree, and they think that they have a right to ask you to give a fair consideration to any request that they may make to you in order to maintain the union which they are anxious should exist between you and them. In your speech upon the Second Reading of the Bill, you said that you were in favour of the principles of a separate domestic Legislature for Ireland, with due reservations, but that you did not consider that Mr. Gladstone had made it sufficiently clear that voting for the Bill would mean nothing but a recognition of this principle, and would leave its supporters absolute independence of judgment with regard to the new Bill that he might introduce in an autumn {353} Session. I think that he has met this objection in his letter to Mr. Moulton that has been published to-day. We think, therefore, that perhaps you could not respond to our wishes, and either vote for the Bill or--if you could not go so far as this--abstain from voting. The issue of the division on Monday is, we believe, entirely in your hands. Should the Bill be lost there will be a General Election at once, which will disturb the trade and commerce of the country; and it will take place at a time which, as no doubt you are aware, will be the worst period of the year for the Radicals, owing to the Registration Laws now in force. It is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that a General Election, without you on our side, may lead to a Whig-Tory, or Tory-Whig Government, which would relegate to the dim and distant future all those measures which you and we so ardently desire may become law. Under these circumstances is it too much for us to ask you to make an effort to avert all these contingencies? When Achilles returned to his tent, the Greeks were defeated. What would it have been had Achilles lent the weight of his arm to the Trojans? I fully recognise how conciliatory your attitude has been, and how anxiously you have sought to see your way from disruption during all the discussions which I have had with you. I still cannot help hoping that, in view of the distant assurances of Mr. Gladstone in his letter to Mr. Moulton, and in view of the wishes of so many of your warmest admirers in the House of Commons, you will see your way to defer to the request which, through me, they make to you.--Yours truly, H. LABOUCHERE. _Mr. Labouchere to Mr. Chamberlain_